Laura Ingraham’s interview from Normandy with President Donald Trump — one in which the graves of Allied service members were used as a backdrop for Trump to trash Democratic congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer — illustrated the extreme lengths Fox News is willing to go to protect the president.
Watch Laura Ingraham tell her audience to disbelieve something Trump just told her
The final, most essential command.
Fox News
Immediately after the interview aired on Thursday night, Ingraham advised her viewers to disbelieve something they just heard the president say.
“Some of you may have heard or read that President Trump supposedly held up the entire D-Day ceremony in order to do this interview with me,” Ingraham said. “That is patently false — fake news.”
The ceremony did indeed start late. Although a number of reporters initially pinned blame for that on Trump, it turned out the culprit was French President Emmanuel Macron, who was running even later than Trump. But Trump put it differently in the interview itself. He told Ingraham, for the world to see, that he was holding up the D-Day commemoration ceremony in order to finish talking with her.
“Listen to those incredible people back there,” Trump said, referring to people who were gathered to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings. “These people are so amazing, and what they don’t realize is that I’m holding them up because of this interview, but that’s because it’s you. By the way, congratulations on your ratings. I’m very proud.”
A video juxtaposing Trump’s remark and Ingraham’s effort to refute it that was originally put together by Timothy Burke went viral on Twitter:
During a speech last summer, Trump advised his supporters, “don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news. Just remember, what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.”
It turns out that in this case, at least, Fox News applied that Orwellian admonition to Trump’s own words.
The news moves fast. To stay updated, follow Aaron Rupar on Twitter, and read more of Vox’s policy and politics coverage.
